Day Zero: Happy Birthday to meee!

I always wanted to have the possibility to have birthday parties in summer. Being born in January made that quite difficult (still pretty sure my birthday parties rock every year, awwyeah! ;)). But as of today I also can have a party on 8^th July, for this is the day I received my autologous stem cell transplant, marking also the end of first-line treatment of my cancer.

So, here´s to me and my second Birthday today! (You know I´m just celebrating this so much cause I hope to double the presents and parties in the next years, right? ;))

 I already knew that today was special when I woke up and I didn´t have to make my bed but a nurse would do that and for rounds the head of this station also showed up (didn´t change the course of conversation though ;)). Shortly after breakfast I was hooked up to a vital signs monitor and getting different meds which should suppress any allergic reactions to the transplant. 

 

Then Dr Müller came in with a bag so small, deeply frozen, looking like Daiquiri. “Is this your signature on the bag?”- Yeah sure, but are YOU sure it´s stem cells and not some frozen cocktail? Because it looks just like it! For a second I´m sure I saw a smile on her face cause she also was thinking bout drinking cocktails rather than transplanting stem cells but we´re here for business. So I stuck a bonbon in my mouth (to avoid tasting the DMSO which is an anti-freezing agent used for the preparation of such samples. But I guess working with it in the lab for years has made me a bit immune to the taste cause there was just a short moment of reconnaissance "Ah, DMSO!" and then it was gone), and waited for the transfusion to be over. Which was after about ten minutes. Seriously, ten minutes! Talkin bout anti-climactic here! They´ve already told me several times how royally awesome I harvested my cells so today the concentration of the cells was so high in this one small bag that it was over so very quickly. Other patients usually need three to five bags, taking up to 30 minutes each.

The rest of the day I spent mostly sleeping, but of course I didn´t let the opportunity pass to have a small birthday party with ice cream and coke. Aw yeah, having cancer sometimes is awesome! ;) 

Pheeww, that was one hell of a party!!

So now I´ll go back to sleep cause I´m so very tired. But not without crowning myself first to Anja Hellborn of the House Meininger, the first of her name, Queen of the Harvest, Kicker of Cancer´s Butt. Now, where are my dragooons??

 

 

Day -1: Biding my time

Since today nothing interesting happened (cancer related, not soccer… -.-) I´d like to give you an insight on my daily life here in isolation.

6:30am: Wakey-wakey for temperature, blood pressure, blood samples and first infusions.

7:00 til 8:00am: Getting dressed and washed and make the bed (yes, all by myself, it´s considered “physical exertion” to make you keep moving and give you purpose. And probably because I cost way less than a nurse to do that ;)).

8:00am: Breakfast- Brötchen, one slice cheese and ham and jam.  And don´t forget the mouth hygiene after every meal. Aww yeah, it´s Pürierte Holländer time!

Four times a day he´s here to haunt me!

 9:00am: Rounds- usually just Dr Müller and some unmotivated student who won´t stop playing with his mobile phone. The last days it was down to this conversation: “How do you feel today?”- “Alright so far.” – “That´s great. Keep going.” Alrighty, ba-bye.

9:30 til 11am: Usually watching one episode of Lost before getting too tired and take a nap. Then some Dutch lessons on my phone (I use duolingo, a very nice app with an owl as teacher. It´s creepy how this owl seems to know things… Today between all those standard sentences like “I travel to America” or “I´m a banana” there suddenly was this: “Tomorrow I start a new life”. Is it just me or does this also give you the shivers?).

11:00 til 12:00am: Physiotherapy like light stretching, ergometer or yoga.

12:00am: Lunch- germ-free of course. Gotta admit it´s getting harder to motivate myself to eat the slob, especially since my spleen seems to get bigger every day pushing my stomach away.

1:00 til 5:00pm: Visiting hours until dinner. Watching movies, playing a lot of Kniffel, sucking hard at Kniffel, talking.

5:30pm: Dinner- two slices of bread with either cheese or ham.

Til 8:00pm: Official visiting hours. 

After 8:00pm: Watching movies, chatting through WhatsApp, writing Blog.

2:00am: Usual bed time. Waking up every two hours for pee breaks. ;)

Yep, that´s basically it and will be for the next weeks. :) It´s like the worst holiday you could´ve booked but thanks to the nice staff here I guess it could be worse.

 

I don´t know what will happen the next days after transplant or how bad it will get so I can´t tell you whether and when you can come visit. I will keep you posted and start issuing a table to organize the many visits once I´m fit enough. ;)

P.S.: Today I will finish with the wise and all-knowing Duo: "Morgen begin ik een nieuw leven". Cause I heard there´s a birthday coming up! ;)

Day -2: Another one bites the dust!

So there goes BEAM. As of today 10:32 am I am officially over and done with chemo treatment. Never mind the new side effects (swollen and painful jaw, meh) it just feels too good to say it again and again- no more chemo for this stubborn mule! (*knock on wood* better safe than sorry ;))

Byebye toxic chemicals!!

I was in such a good mood today because of this that I didn´t even try to throw the physiotherapist out of the window. Which I surprisingly still could do if I wanted to because my general condition is still topnotch (for someone receiving high dose chemo for 6 days now ;)). The psycho oncologist however would have been a completely different topic. I guess she already issued her vacation for the next weeks. Again. Hmm, what a coincidence. 

So tomorrow is my “free” day without any infusion (and hopefully still no transfusion!), getting ready for the actual stem cell transplant on Friday. Though my blood values start to drop and therefore my spleen starts to annoy me I still hope that the tides won´t turn and I´m not just too dumb lucky right now. I plan to keep sailing through this as easy and fast as possible. But it never hurts to have a “Fuck the storm” schedule ready, right? ;)

P.S.: I know I promised at the beginning of this whole blog that this was never supposed to be an emotionally cheery thing (besides the occasionally "YOLO, bitches!" but c´mon you try to write about cancer completely without YOLO! ;)). Since I get the feeling I´m failing to keep up this standard here in hospital (sooo chipper and not at all full of hate, jeez!) I decided to give in to posting oh-so-true wisdoms about cancer and life at the end. Let´s start with something not too bright now, shall we? Kinda slowly ease into this "embracing life" sh...tuff.

"I wish cancer got cancer and died." 

Erm, it´s about death. Oh well, let´s try again tomorrow. :)